Little Good Can Come Out Of This Long March

Little Good Can Come Out Of This Long March
One of Pakistan’s greatest strengths is that it is going through a ‘delicate situation’ since its birth. Live from the ICU, it is carrying out some extremely heavy duties like leading the Muslim ummah (that has yet to come into being); and protecting Islam as its impregnable citadel (even after losing the full territory in former East Pakistan and suffering a weakened writ of state in Balochistan, interior Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Karachi and recently Islamabad Expressway and Faizabad.)

Its current conundrum is more serious than the 1971 and 1977 political turmoil – for the Social Media Babies (SMBs) have come of age.

Khan, PTI leaders and the mindless SMBs – are the ‘too many cooks’ who have spoilt the broth. Everybody has a different but authentic ‘truth’ to share on November 4, the historic day when Khan escaped death. The depiction of the attack turned from a serious matter into a spectacle.

Khan was not shifted to a nearby hospital but Shaukat Khanam Memorial-SKM (his own charity hospital), a three-hour drive from the crime scene. He refused a medico-legal, a pre-requisite for FIR. The SKM report says he received a couple of bullet’s shards in both legs. SKM received him in a ‘conscious’ state. Jinnah Hospital report says that he received one bullet in each leg and he was received in an unconscious state.

To keep the PTI united, Dr Yasmin Rashid allegedly confiscated and destroyed the two reports.

It must be remembered that Malala had a bullet in her temple and Hamid Mir had six in his belly. They stayed between death and life for days, yet many including PTI lawmaker Musarat Zeb remarked that it was a drama.

Lest we forget, the late journalist Arshad Sharif himself had declared the attack on Mir as ‘staged.’ He ran a media campaign to prove that Absar Alam and Asad Toor had staged attacks on themselves to seek political asylum in Europe or the US. Khan himself in his opinion piece in the Telegraph wrote that Benazir Bhutto has only herself to blame.

Khan’s deputy Shah Mehmood Qureshi (a flower who always faces the sun-in-power) has cursed the uniform of Faisal Shahkar, his own Inspector General Punjab (IGP), for he did not register the FIR on November 4 spectacle. Qureshi barked up the wrong tree. He did not have the courage to curse the Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi who ordered the IG not to register it. Shahkar has stepped down in protest, while exposing Pervez Elahi.

Another PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry is inciting SMBs to take revenge with violent acts. He wants them to set everything on fire. PTI protesters have already set on fire the fully grown trees on the Islamabad Expressway. (No religion permits it even during war.) They are burning down private and public property. They block roads. People can’t attend their business or work.  Patients die in ambulances for they can’t make it to hospitals when the blocked roads are aflame. The British around the Avenfield Apartment are sick and tire of the noisy SMBs. One poor lady is crying in this video. Another is asking them to leave for it is a school!

Khan has failed to read the writing on the wall, but here one can spell it out for him:

  1. The long march has failed.

  2. Pervez Elahi has stabbed him in his back. He is the same turncoat who said that he would love to elect General Musharraf 100 times as president in uniform. He now cajoles General Bajwa!

  3. Shah Mehmood Qureshi wants Khan gone (at least politically) so that he could head PTI.

  4. It is not a peaceful march. It is not for democracy or for the right of the people. It is an evil march to spread chaos and anarchy in order to grab power.

Mohammad Shehzad is based in Islamabad. He has been writing for national and foreign publications since 1992. He is the author of The State of Islamic Radicalism in Pakistan (Routledge Taylor & Francis) and Love and Fear: Poems Beyond Time (www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZNK6SHB) He learns tabla and classical vocal music. He is a passionate cook and shares his recipes at Youtube.com/@mohammadshehzad. Email: Yamankalyan@gmail.com